Tales of the Lost
by Casanovan
Summary: A series of one-shots based on the scourging of Lordaeron and Quel'Thalas, focused on individuals who find themselves in life-threatening situations. Read and Review :)


Tales of the Lost Book 1

_Author's Note: Hi fanfic reading community! So I've recently resolved to start some serious writing, and for now I plan to make some fanfics based on the Warcraft universe. I have quite a few stories in the works right now, but in the meantime I've chosen to start a series of one-shots focused on the scourging of Lordaeron and Quel'Thalas, featuring individuals who find themselves facing almost certain death. Spoiler alert for any who haven't read Arthas: Rise of the Lich King and/or played the Warcraft III campaign._

_This chapter is an opener that introduces all of us to the Scourging of Lordaeron. It takes place near ground zero, right when Arthas kills his father and sets the undead on the citizens of Capital City. If my description of the city doesn't match what you've seen from the Ruins of Lordaeron in-game, I assure you that it was on purpose; I "expanded" it so that it could be the size of an actual city (like what people do with Stormwind, for instance) and so I had to improvise in some areas. This will likely be the most off-cannon thing about this story._

_And last but not least, thank you so much to my beta, Argentcoeur, without whom this would've been riddled with errors and likely impossible to read (ok I'm not THAT bad)._

_Now without further ado, enjoy!_

**Book One: All Hell Breaks Loose**

Anna Hawthorne stood in the hot sun, waiting with her mother and father for the return of Prince Arthas Menethil. The wayward royal had departed Lordaeron some time ago, bringing his men to vanquish some evil in Northrend. Now that he'd finally returned victorious, a huge celebration would take place in Capital City. Anna couldn't care less. Why should it matter to her if some royal man had gone to the ends of the earth on his own mission? Why should she care? Right now she was hot, her formal-wear was itchy and uncomfortable and her feet were aching from bearing her weight for so long.

She wore a white silk dress, one of the best her father could afford. It fell loosely from two straps on her narrow shoulders, with frills at the chest and hem. The dress gathered at her waist, dropping to drag on the ground- it had been made for a teenager, and despite her fourteen years of age, Anna still had yet to reach her 'growth spurt' as her mother called it. She wore white flats with little arch support, an extreme disadvantage when standing for such an extended period of time. Around her neck lay a loop of small pearls, an heirloom passed down through her mother's family.

Despite the skin of her shoulders, arms and neck being bare, Anna felt like she was wearing a coat under the hot sun. Her family had been standing amid the throngs of people for hours, waiting for the stupid prince to show up, and all Anna cared about was getting home to a have nice, cool bath. She'd tried to ask her mother if she could leave several times, but she had only snapped that this was an important celebration and that everyone in the city was there. With an irritated huff she shifted again, fruitlessly trying to make her dress settle in a more comfortable manner.

"Mum, please let me go home," Anna whined. "I don't think anyone will notice one less person."

Her mother gave her a stern look. "No," She replied firmly. "You will stand here with the rest of us like a respectable young lady."

"But Mum-" Anna was cut off by her father.

"Shh! They're nearly here!" he hissed. Now that she listened, Anna heard deafening cheers slowly heading their direction. In minutes, the sounds of yelling and clapping surrounded her. Resisting the urge to cover her ears, Anna stood on the tips of her toes, attempting to get a look at the prince and his troop of soldiers. Using her father's shoulder as support, she peered over the sea of heads, her eyes finally settling on three figures marching onward to the Throne Room.

The men were being greeted enthusiastically, some citizens even showering them in rose petals. The man at the head of the three- _'Probably the prince then,'_ Anna concluded- paused to catch a petal. Something about it must have made him uneasy, because he dropped it a few seconds later his stride quickening and his shoulders high with tension.

Anna gasped when he revealed his face from the shadows of his hood; his hair was bone white, his skin chalk white, and lips chapped grey. Was it just her imagination, or did his eyes land on her for just a moment as he scanned the crowd? Regardless, he continued, leading the two other men into the palace itself. Anna dropped from the tips of her toes and turned to her mother, who apparently hadn't noticed the prince's strange appearance- it didn't look like anyone had.

"Mum!" she said, speaking close to her mother's ear and shaking her arm. "Mum, what's wrong with the prince? His hair is white and his face looks so pale."

Anna's mother turned to her, brows furrowed. "Anna, Prince Menethil's hair is blonde, you must have imagined it."

She began to turn away, but Anna shook her arm again. "But Mum! I know what I saw! His hair was-"

"Enough of this nonsense," Her mother snapped. "You will stand here like a good girl with your father and me, and you won't bother us again with such silliness."

Anna opened her mouth to protest, but her mother had already turned away. The girl looked at the faces of others, dismayed to see that none of them shared her surprise at the prince's appearance. Had none of them seen his face? So focused was she that she didn't hear the distant screams, nor did she hear the cries of dying men. It was only when it got closer that she turned back to the palace, another gasp forming; bleeding, shambling men were pouring from the palace, murderous expressions on their faces. They surged forward like the waters of a broken damn, slaughtering the hundreds of gathered civilians.

Anna spun around to face her parents, but both were frozen in shock, their eyes wide and jaws slack. "Mum, Dad!" She cried. "We have to leave! Come on!" Her shouts fell on deaf ears. She tried to get their attention by grabbing their hands and pulling, but neither of them responded. What was wrong with them? Why weren't they running?

"MUM! DAD!" she screamed as loud as she could, but they seemed numb to the world. The sweeping tide of men was getting close now, the cries getting more desperate. Anna did the only thing she could; she turned and ran, following the others who weren't frozen in terror.

More men came from the city's main exit, forcing Anna and the other civilians to run deeper into the city, going through the passage that led to the north-east side of the city. She didn't look back, hoping against hope that her parents were following, not trapped in the main courtyard between the men from the palace and those that came from through the main gate.

After her vision began to blur, her breath coming in short gasps, Anna stopped, her knees buckling in exhaustion. After taking a few moments to catch her breath, she turned back to where the men had been coming from. To her horror, the closest group was less than forty yards away, bearing down on the people who had run out of breath sooner than she. She momentarily took pride in her stamina, but fear for her parents quickly replaced that; she couldn't find them amid the chaos, but feared the worst. The men were getting closer, so she broke into a sprint again, against her body's protests, and hoped that they would eventually tire as well. No amount of discipline could counter the effects of running in armor on such a hot day.They'd been fighting _and_ running, and yet they seemed less exhausted than Anna herself.

After a few minutes, when Anna believed she would simply faint mid-run and the sounds of fighting were getting closer still, she decided that there was no way she could outrun these men; she'd have to find somewhere to hide. Before she could begin to question the sanity of playing hide-and-seek with this army, Anna took off down a side alley, desperately looking for a door with which to enter one of the buildings. There! Not twelve yards down was a small back door. Anna sprinted for it with all of her remaining energy; if the men were to reach this point and see her going in, they would just break down the door; she'd heard the stories of bandits and pirates who would stop at nothing to plunder or kill everything in sight. With all her might she twisted and pulled, trying to open the door, but it was all for nothing. The door wouldn't budge. "What do I do?" she blurted out, frantic. For the first time in her life, not a soul answered the question. Her parents were gone.

Anna stiffened when she heard shouts from either end of the alley; they'd found her! Desperate, she searched for some way to escape. The despair had almost convinced her to give in when her eyes landed on a stack of crates. Around her neighborhood, something even that high wouldn't have helped, but here the roofs of buildings were lower, enough so that she would be able to jump atop the wooden boxes and clamber on to the tops of the surrounding structures. As she leapt on to the stack of crates she heard a tear of fabric. Her dress had ripped. Anna shrieked, feeling a slimy hand grabbing her ankle, but a sudden kick was all it took to break free, though she lost one of her flats in the process. An unearthly wail from behind her forced Anna to look back, an act which she immediately regretted; the man - if he could still be called that - appeared to be rotting, the eyes glowing a sickly yellow color and skin tinted a shiny puke-yellow by decay. He hadn't been dead for long, but the stench threatened to bring her midday meal to surface.

Anna distanced herself from the edges of the rooftop, terrified confusion racing through her. What in the Light's name was happening? What was wrong with that man? Anna forced back her questions as another danger presented itself. Several more men, their skin hanging in wrinkles and folds, dripping putrid acids, like the one she'd seen, were climbing up the building, their heads pointed at her. Thinking frantically, she attempted to plan. Perhaps there would be fewer outside the city, in which case her best course of action would be to get out. But what if it was just as bad out there?

Her decision was forced beyond her control as she heard a groan behind her. Turning, she looked just in time to see one of the creatures lunge toward her. With supernatural speed it flew through the air, tackling her around the waist. However, as Anna squirmed, refusing to die without a fight, she found herself falling through the air. The man's momentum must have carried them off the edge of the building. Her struggling twisted them around for her to land on top, the man hitting the cobblestone street with a sickening crunch beneath her.

Anna shakily detached herself from the man and struggled to her feet. While his body had saved her from any injury, she still dizzy and weak from all the running and climbing she'd done. With a gag Anna looked over her white dress, stained brown from the fluid oozing from the rips in the man's skin. She forced herself to ignore it and looked around.

The place they'd landed in looked like it had already been swept through. Anna gasped at the carnage the men had left behind; there were corpses everywhere, each with their own distinct set of wounds. Some looked to have bled out, others had their heads caved in, yet more had their throats sliced open, blood still sluggishly seeping from their necks. In addition, many of them lay on their fronts, deep wounds tearing up their backs, as though they'd been cut down as they tried to flee.

Tears slid down her face as she recognized a tuft of blonde hair. His name was Theodore, though he preferred 'Theo', and he had been a blacksmith's son and one of her closest friends. Anna had once thought that they would get married some day when they were older. He had been impaled by a spear, the weapon still stuck through his body. She let out a sob. Her parents had likely suffered a similar fate. She was all alone.

Anna tensed when she saw a figure appear from around the corner of a nearby building. He looked to be a man but she couldn't be sure; he was garbed in black and purple robes, his face concealed by a hood. Could he be another survivor?

"Hello?" she called out to the figure, her voice coming out hoarse from the sobbing. The man didn't react. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Who are you? Do you know what's going on?" An idea came to her; it was a long shot, but maybe he worked for the city guard and was looking for survivors. "A-are you here to help?"

The man finally seemed to hear her and he turned to face her. Fear shot through her. He was deathly pale a purple sash concealed the lower half of his face; his eyes were cruel and narrowed. He looked her over for a few moments before gesturing at something to her left. He repeated the action several times in other directions, causing fear to momentarily be replaced by confusion. What was he doing? He appeared to be beckoning something, or several things.

A sound to her left caught Anna's attention, and she stared in horror as a woman- around the same age as her mother- clambered to her feet. Her eyes rolled in her head, glowing with an eerie yellow light, same as the man's eyes from earlier Looking around, she saw several other corpses rising, their limbs trailing sluggishly, some letting out moans in rasping, hollow voices. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw Theo standing a few feet away from her, his gaze intent and predatory. The man in black pointed at her, and suddenly the reanimated bodies were shambling towards her, feet slapping the ground.

For a few precious seconds she panicked, screaming in terror at what was sure to be agony, the possibilities of her death flashing in her head; would they rip her apart, limb from limb, or simply tear out her throat? _'I'm going to die!'_ She thought. Then the image of her parents, frozen in terror and unable to tear their eyes from valiant soldiers turned murderers, appeared in her mind. She couldn't simply give up like that. Anna desperately cast around for some means of escape, but found herself utterly surrounded. Was this it, then? Was this how she would die, trapped and defenseless? A steely determination came over her.

Suddenly, an opportunity presented itself; there was a thinner part of the circle that was closing in like a noose. The walking corpses were less dense. Knowing it would only be seconds before her chance vanished, Anna sprinted forward, ducking under the outstretched arms of a middle-aged woman.

Only one other body stood in her way: Theo. She swallowed hard and charged forward again, but this time the man in black made a gesture, and Theo lunged at her, his teeth sinking into her bare forearm. Anna cried out, but managed to ignore the pain in her adrenaline filled state and broke free, wincing from the agony of tearing flesh as she yanked her arm away from Theo's tightly clamped jaws. He'd taken a chunk out of her left forearm. With one last glance at the man in black, Anna broke into a run. _'He's still alive… why isn't he being hunted down?'_ She was forced away from that question by the burning pain of her injury.

Blood poured from her open wound and she grasped at it with her other hand in an attempt to stop the bleeding, fearing what would happen if she lost too much blood. Her hand barely slowed the flow. She needed something to stop the blood. She recalled the ripping noise from her climb onto the roof and stopped, looking down at her dress. The fabric had torn, leaving her leg partially revealed in a fashion her mother would have yelled at her for.

She grabbed the bottom hem and yanked, satisfied by the piece of silk that came away. Knowing that only one layer of the thin cloth wouldn't be much help, Anna bunched it up and put it on the bite, crying out as she did so. _'Come on, Anna, you need pressure.'_ She told herself. Biting her lip to keep from making noise, she pushed harder. It seemed to be helping, so she tore another strip of silk from her dress and used it to tie the bundle of cloth to the wound, creating a makeshift bandage. Once satisfied that it would stay, she hastily continued at an energy conserving jog, dreading what lay beyond her.

After jogging through the eerily empty street, she slowed to a stop when she saw a group of men- _'Not men, corpses,'_ she scolded herself- ahead. They seemed to be guarding one of the city's exits. Anna considered trying to sneak past them but thought better of it; the open gateway was small; there was no way they wouldn't notice her. She looked around for other means of escape and was shocked by the sheer number of bodies.

With a creeping sense of despair, she let out a quiet sob. What if that man in black came again, and started reanimating the lifeless flesh? What if there were others like him, scouring the city for corpses to raise? There were far too many here for her to escape once they were reanimated. She needed to leave the city as soon as she could. _'But how?'_ she wondered, becoming more hopeless by the minute.

Suddenly the dead men near the exit caught her attention as one called out, pointing to something outside of the city. Relief flooded her; they were gone, chasing after some unknown quarry and leaving her an avenue of escape. Anna tentatively took a few steps forward, scanning the area for any more walking corpses. Her gaze settled on another man in black. He was only ten yards away, close enough for her to recognize him as the same man from earlier. He wasn't looking at her, but at where the men had gone, his hand pointed to something beyond her field of vision. From what she'd seen, he had some control over the dead; had he sent them away on purpose?

Her question was answered when he turned to stare her dead in the eye, his voice muffled due to the sash. "Go girl," he demanded. "Leave while you can."

Anna was shocked; he had seemed like a bad person, raising the dead to kill her. Why was he letting her go? "Th-thank you, sir." she stammered.

Her gratitude seemed to perturb him. "Don't thank me yet, girl," His gaze darted to her wound and he frowned. "Now go, before I change my mind."

Anna was confused by the man's words, but heeded his demand and broke into a run, finally free of the hell her home had become. The small gate she walked through led into the north-eastern part of Tirisfal Glades. The things that had left earlier were nowhere to be found, which wasn't necessarily a good thing; if she took off in the wrong direction, she could run right into them.

Anna considered her options. If she went west, she would be forced to skirt the edges of Capital City in order to arrive in Silverpine and travel south. If she went due east, she could flee either north, into the nigh impenetrable lands of Quel'Thalas, or south to Hillsbrad Foothills. She wasn't certain, but there would likely be at least some of those walking corpses in every direction, so "safe" would be hard to come by. Still, east provided more routes of escape. Her decision made, Anna began moving north-east, attempting first to put some distance between herself and Capital City.

After traveling for half an hour, Anna began to feel light-headed. She slowed her pace, thinking she had gone too fast for too far, but it didn't make a difference. _'My arm!'_ She thought suddenly. After a moment of hesitation, fearing what she would see, Anna untied the bloodstained strip of cloth and examined the bite. She let out a gasp; the bleeding, which was what she'd been worried about, had stopped, but there was a sickly greenish tinge to the skin around it.

She panicked, remembering a time from her childhood when a cut on her hand had gotten infected and she was forced to see a priest for healing. But where would she find a priest in the wilderness? Swallowing thickly, Anna suddenly felt quite feverish. How could it become infected so fast? It had taken days after she'd been cut the first time before she had felt sick.

Anna's vision blurred, the world tilting on its axis. A sense of understanding came over her as she recalled the man's earlier words. _"Don't thank me yet…"_ He had known this would happen. What difference did it make if she was torn apart by the dead or killed slowly by some strange illness? The story had the same ending. Another violent bout of dizziness brought her to her knees, and Anna began retching, feeling as if her insides were on fire. But it wasn't vomit or even stomach acid she was puking up; it was blood. More of it began to stream from her nose, and then red tears dripped from her eyes. What was happening to her?

"KILL ME! KILL ME!" she screamed out, hoping to get the attention of the walking corpses, if there were any nearby. "PLEASE! END IT!" Anna clutched her throat as she retched more blood, unable to say any more. She rolled onto her side, her vision growing hazy, her ears ringing high-pitched and painfully. _'Please… someone kill me…'_ She prayed.

"It will be over, soon enough,"A voice reached her ears, even over their cacophonous ringing. With her remaining strength, Anna looked up to see the man in black from the city, gazing down at her with a look of pity. He noticed her gaze and his expression turned impassive.

"Unfortunately for you, this death will only be the beginning. Such will be the fate of all living creatures in the days to come. Now rise! Rise and carry out the master's will!"

'_No…'_ Anna thought, her senses slowly dulling to nothing until she was alone in the dark. _'Don't turn me into one of those things…'_

And then, despite all of her efforts, Anna Hawthorne died.

_I hope you all liked it! While this chapter was released on a Wednesday, my regular day of update from now on will be every second Friday, at least until I get a better feel for frequent updates._

**Posted as of 13/03/2013.**


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